The Ladle of Love Truck Has Decamped From Tavern on the Green

July 18, 2011

Another food truck has left Manhattan, and this time, the police have absolutely nothing to do with it.

Ladle of Love, one of four food trucks the city opened outside of the defunct Tavern on the Green last October, has ended its contract with the Parks Department, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The electric truck, which sold soup and sandwiches, was the offshoot of a Westchester, New York, gourmet shop. According to a Parks Department spokesman, the owner could no longer afford the $100,000 annual fee for her parking spot in the Central Park lot, which is also occupied by the Van Leeuwen, Pera Turkish Tacos, and Rickshaw Dumpling trucks. Apparently even the liquor license the truck obtained in June wasn’t enough to make up for the fact that, as the Parks rep said, what was “expected to be a year-round operation turned out to have more of a three-month season.”

Ladle’s departure is the latest faintly embarrassing disappointment for the old Tavern space, which was turned into a gift shop and visitors center after labor negotiations between the restaurant’s workers and Dean Poll, the restaurateur to whom the city awarded Tavern’s operating license, broke down last year. And at least one member of the LeRoy family, which owned Tavern at the time of its closure, is still smarting over the restaurant’s fate: a commenter identifying herself as Bridget LeRoy, a daughter of Warner LeRoy, wrote beneath the story, “Thanks, New York City … take away our license and give it to Dean Poll and everybody wins! Good plan!'”

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